Seven years ago this month marked the beginning of our grassroots movement.
On numerous occasions we have brought to your attention the domination
that the University of Pittsburgh exercises over the community of Oakland.
We have asked that you deviate from your compliant relationship with
the University in order to assist the community in creating a new beginning.

We would like to talk again about the University’s domination. Instead
of discussing its domination over the community, today is to discuss
the University’s domination over this council and our city government.
Although the domination is pervasive, today we will focus on the domination
over one street in our community and how it is analogous to the University’s
greater domination.

Joncaire Street leads from South Bouquet Street at the top down to Boundary
Street at the bottom. It became famous in 1935 when Babe Ruth hit his
final homerun over the right field roof at Forbes Field, and the ball
landed on Joncaire Street. A young resident of Boundary Street, Henry
“Wiggy” DeOrio, retrieved the ball and donated it to the Baseball Hall
of Fame in Cooperstown. At that time, 98% of individuals who used the
sidewalk on this street were longtime residents, and 2% were affiliated
with the University of Pittsburgh. Today, because of the University’s
never-ending expansion, these figures are reversed.

Along the hillside sidewalk, the University of Pittsburgh owns property
from the top of Joncaire Street down to the third telephone pole. The
city of Pittsburgh owns the remaining property, from the third telephone
pole to the bottom of the street. The University also owns a parking
lot at the bottom of the street with over 100 parking stalls. In addition,
there is a similarly sized private parking lot nearby that accommodates
mostly University of Pittsburgh students, faculty, and staff.

This sidewalk use makes it predominately a “University” sidewalk.

However, when it snows the University has chosen to clear the sidewalk
only down to the third telephone pole. The University defiantly refuses
to clean even one foot beyond its property line, even though it would
take a University snow removal maintenance worker only a few minutes
to continue down the sidewalk and complete the cleaning. This arrogant
University decision is not only embarrassing to city leadership by forcing
the city of Pittsburgh to remove snow from the remainder of the sidewalk,
but it results in a waste of taxpayers’ money.

That action, symbolic of the University’s attitude toward the surrounding
community, is more baffling because in the last seven years this city
council has never passed legislation that conflicted with the desires
of the University of Pittsburgh. It is time for a paradigm shift. For
that to occur, the change must first begin within each one of you. In
the near future, our community will again give you an opportunity to
pass legislation that will be unsupported by Chancellor Mark Nordenberg
and his administration. This will be in the form of a proposed University
Impact Aid law whereby universities would be required to provide financial
assistance to the communities their presence impacts.

The benevolence of longtime resident Henry DeOrio is a sharp contrast
to the self-centered actions of University administrators. Years ago,
I asked Councilman Bruce Kraus, “Why doesn’t the University of Pittsburgh
do more for the community of Oakland?” His response was, “You can’t force
people to care.” While that may be true, what this council can do is
pass legislation indicating that the days of University domination over
the community of Oakland and the city of Pittsburgh government are coming
to an end.